How Bungie created Strand, Destiny 2’s first new subclass in 3 years

Late February saw the much-anticipated release of Destiny 2: Lightfallthe new extension that signals the “beginning of the end”. Fate Light and Dark Saga. The campaign takes Guardians to the hidden city of Neomuna, nestled within Neptune and undisturbed until Shadow Legion forces arrive. It’s up to you and Neomuna’s protectors, the Cloud Striders, to defend the city.

Our Wardens are also discovering a brand new power: Strand. They learn to handle this suspicious, stringy substance throughout life incidence of light campaign, and it manifests itself in a whole new subclass for destiny 2 Players, the first to be introduced since Stasis in 2020.

We wanted to learn more about this new subclass, how Bungie came up with its design and how all of its elements work together, and to delve deeper we spoke to Gameplay Feature Lead Eric Smith to find out how the new Darkness power came about .

Like every subclass in destiny 2, Strand grants each of the three player classes – Titan, Hunter, and Warlock – different abilities and a powerful super ability tailored to each class. Strong Titans get the Berserker ability, which summons two giant handblades to cut down foes, the slender warlock sends beach scraps through baddies that explode into fierce Threadling enemies, and skilled hunters can use the Silkstrike ability to unleash a long rope arrow and summon thwip through their enemies.

A helping strand

Strand focuses on traversing in ways that have never been explored before destiny 2. Each character is given a grip that you can use to hold on to a surface or area and swing through the air, perfect for moving around quickly or solving tricky jumping puzzles. Smith tells us that the grapple is at the heart of the Strand class and that it was the team’s research into this ability that made this possible.

“The theme of the beach damage type is all rope and cord, so it just felt like a natural opportunity to put a grappling hook there,” says Smith. “We thought a lot about how the Grapple should work, whether we wanted it to be a burst of acceleration or jump from point to point, and we ended up with this place where it reads as players strand learn your mind a little.”

“You can dash to a certain point if you’re looking straight at it, but you can also swing under it, you can throttle left or right, or swing around it. We ended up with a really dynamic gripper that we are all very proud of.”

The Grapple ability replaces the Grenade slot for players using Strand, so it also needed some sort of damage ability to make up for the loss of that slot. The result is what if you are the grenade?

“Since it’s in that spot, we wanted to give it an offensive utility,” explains Smith. “One thing you can do is grab a punch, which does some pretty big area damage. You can use the grapple to get out of bad situations, but you can also use it like a grenade to take out multiple enemies. I think Strand has a learning curve that I’m happy to master if the players master it.”

Beach and deliver

During combat, Strand users can create tangles by defeating an enemy that has been weakened by another Strand ability. For example, Hunters have the Ensnaring Slam ability, which allows them to suspend groups of enemies in the air by slamming the ground. Titans can also expose enemies with the Drengr’s Whip skill.

This tangle can then be shot down to cause an explosion, picked up and thrown at another enemy, or thrown in the air to be used as a grapple point. Smith tells us that the passive Tangle ability felt right at home in Strand’s roster.

“Once we had that system built in and had various perks that trigger the tangles, it felt like we were doing something different than the other subclasses,” he says. “It happens passively, and once you’ve created a Tangle, there’s a branching decision point where you can choose what to do with it.”

The Tangles are just one aspect of Strand that makes it a more collaborative subclass for Guardians playing together. For example, since a Guardian’s Grapple ability has no cooldown when used on a grapple point, the Hunter can use their Widow’s Silk ability to create a grapple point for another teammate to use without their own Consume Grapple ability. Smith explains that with the development of Strand, the team wants to create more opportunities for Fireteam members to combine their unique abilities.

“We wanted players to trail their teammates and help them jump puzzles, and that’s something we’re looking to double down on in the coming seasons,” he says.

Free the Threadlings

The Strand subclasses introduce Threadlings—little creatures sculpted from strand that scurry away and attack anything in range. Smith tells us that this was one of the harder skills because of that destiny 2 turbulent terrain and dynamic environments.

“The Threadlings are what we call ‘Ground Follows’ because they’re limited to crawling on the ground and we have a lot of surfaces in there destiny 2 where it can be difficult for a player to use them effectively,” he explains. “They have quite a long tracking range, so they can follow an enemy and then stop and jump, giving them some verticality, but we’ll tweak how they work over time.”

The team also had to balance how much damage Threadlings can do and how often they’re active, not just in PvE modes like Campaign, but also in online PvP, where the slightest damage can dramatically change the game.

“It would be frustrating to play against too many Threadlings in PvP, so allowing players maximum fun without destabilizing PvP modes was a balancing act.”

This balancing act was also important during the development of the three main class super abilities, and Smith describes the workload and distribution of disciplines that must go into creating a super ability.

“Every time we build a new Super, we make a list of possible designs and trim it down to what’s realistic,” he explains. “But there are a lot of decisions, it’s animation, VFX, design, engineering, audio – so many things have to come together and then you have to balance the Super itself across so many game modes.”

You can check out some of the unused Super Ideas in the images below, but Smith told us that the Warlock Super Ability almost ended up with tentacles sprouting and smashing at enemies. The actual Warlock Super, Needlestorm, which allows players to unleash a barrage of spikes on enemies, is still just as cool.

After examining Strand in detail, we were left with just one question: why did the team choose green as their subclass color? Smith tells us that while searching for the perfect hex code, the team wanted to make sure each class was both instantly identifiable and aesthetically pleasing.

“We had a handful of options, but green felt the strongest,” he tells us. “It just worked really well with the beach theme. We saw it as a green ball of yarn and wanted you to think of it every time you walk by yarn in a store.”

incidence of light Players unlock Strand permanently at the end of the incidence of light Campaign, and from there you can unlock Aspects and Fragments that allow you to really customize the subclass to suit your playstyle, whether that’s to keep your distance or jump straight into the action.

Also released last Friday was Root of Nightmares, the brand new raid included in the pack incidence of lightso make sure you swing your way through Neomuna to unlock those beach skills and gear up for the ancient menace growing on our doorstep.

Destiny 2: Lightfall is now available for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.